A Very African Thanksgiving

Greetings again from Africa. I know, I’ve been sluggish about updating, but please forgive. Here is my November ode to Africa.

Lockdown

For all Peace Corps Volunteers, it is a general requirement that you spend your first three months of service at your post. New volunteers are not allowed to leave for any reason other than administrative business, grave health issues, and banking. (There are not bank in many small towns and villages here. You need to go to a larger city in most cases get money in mass). The idea is that we are supposed to stay in our place and get a true sense of where we are living – get to know the people, the local customs and culture, the way of life in your new setting.
Lockdown is actually been a blessing. I’ve had the opportunity to make great friends in village, learn the secret passage ways, hidden nooks and crannies of the terrain, and spend time being a good teacher and community member for my students. However, my health and training schedule has afforded me many opportunities to break free. Here is my story – inside and outside my Kalale cage.

The Eye of the Beholder
Beautiful is in the eye of the beholder. Although I’ve given descriptions of Kalale before, I haven’t had the chance to really paint the picture of my Beninese commune head. It is aptly suited to me, and I do consider it home already. Let me get out my brush and canvas and see what kind of images I can conjure for you.

The “New Jersey” of Benin
Kalale is trashy. It has its share of toothless yokels, for sure, but I am talking about more of a general waste management problem. The dirt roads are caked with trash – paper wrapping, black plastic bags, tin cans, bits and pieces of broken plastic. Villagers just jettison anything that is not worthy keeping, and what is not picked up by children or other citizens that can find a use for it, just sits where it is thrown until is rots away into oblivion (which I believe is centuries for plastic products). Coupled its status as a growing trash heap, Kalale also has immense problems with drainage. On its developmental path to progress, Kalale missed the boat when it came to designing a system that allows waste water (the dirty stuff) to not congeal with rain water (the stuff that eventually becomes what I shower in). The problem is most easily recognizable in the center of town, where the gutter canals overflow will an electric green sludge that I can only imagine to be Kryptonite itself, liquefy and potent enough to kill.

Walk This Way
If you can look behind the grit and grim of Kalale, it is impossible not to notice that is a magical and beautiful. The commune is cradled between two rolling mountains covered in a mix of palm trees and craggy greener that snakes up the sides of the hills. My morning walk to school through town as the early sun breaks through the horizon is one the most breath-taking experiences I get to endure here –and it’s every day. My red dirt roads glow as the light hits it and the roadsides are decorated with tall, old trees that look as old as the Earth and sweet like palm shoots pop out from behind store fronts and tiny houses. At night, as the sun sets, the sky turns every single color the rainbow has to offer, and the sun – the sun – just glows. It may be my mind playing tricks on me, but I swear the sun is actually bigger here. Maybe it has something to do with my closer proximity to the equator; maybe that is just me being romantic; either way, it is enormous and rolling, and doesn’t so much shimmer or sparkle as it does radiate, project, and intensify everything it touches. West Africa is beautiful. I don’t know that a picture can capture it or if I even tried to type a thousand words worth of description that I’d even be able to illustrate a corner of the panorama.

Starry Night
I woke up at 2:00 AM one fine African morning to that internal sloshy feeling that can only signify one thing – diarrhea. I had going to the bathroom in the middle of the night. It means there is no electricity, I have to search for my flashlight in the dark, and then go outside and around the corner to Latrine Alley, just to meet the late-night party of lizards and cockroaches festooning around my cement hole. Lovely. On this particular night, still in a groggy daze of slumber, I marched my fanny out to the latrine to take care of business. On the way back, I looked up at the sky. I hadn’t noticed it before, but it was beautiful, absolutely gorgeous. The black sky was gigantic and lit with was seemed to be a million different stars in a thousand different shapes and sizes, all glimmering with an intensity I believe they reserve for midnight gazers, the few and infrequent who stay up to see them shine. I stood in awe for what seemed like forever, just counting and watching and taking in everything I could and then – the moment I was hoping for. Before I left, my Dad told me told me to take special note of the night sky. There would be magical things in the sky – like shooting stars. And lo and behold – his promises came to fruition. One right after the next four brilliant shooting stars launched themselves across the sky as if they were trying with great effort to slam themselves into the moon. I feel in love with the African sky that night, and now I await my sloshy morning feelings with a sense of hope, awe, and expectation.

The (Mis)Education of Madame Loren Lee

Like a Virgin

It’s true; I may be the one standing in front of my English classroom, but it is not lost on me, even for one moment, that we are all students in that room. My first year of teaching brings with it its own particular sense of adventure. As I teach them English, my students teach me new French vocabulary, what works and what does not as an effective lesson plan, and more than anything – how to be a teacher. Learning is never one dimensional; it comes at the students as they listen, when they speak, as they copy, and when they go out and attempt to practice their newly acquired language skills. I have developed a reputation for incorporating a lot of singing and dancing in my lessons, because I find that learning words to a rhythm and a beat keeps the sounds, the flow, and pronunciation cemented in the brains of my students. At my first APE meeting (the Benin version of the PTA), a parent came up to me and said, “You are my son’s favorite teacher this year. He loves his English class. He comes home and loves to sing his English songs with this brothers and sisters.” He then proceeded to serenade me with his rendition of “Skinamirinky Dinky Dink” – complete with the accompanying hand motions. I’d be lying if I said that I can’t believe that the American government is actually paying me to be this happy and have this much fun doing something I genuinely enjoy. Viva l’anglais!

Doing It the Write Way
As you know, I am a writer. It would only make sense then, that as an English teacher here in Benin, I would force my love of writing upon my unsuspecting student. I decided to take part of the World Wise program that the Peace Corps offers to serving volunteers that connect them with a classroom in America. In doing so, the volunteer can have a transatlantic, cross-cultural exchange in an educational environment. Immediately upon hearing about it, I signed up and was paired with a sixth grade Social Studies class in Rhode Island who are learning about African history, geography, and culture. After a few emails back and forth, the other teacher and I decided Pen Pal letters between the students would be great practice in English reading and writing for my cinqueme (second year) English class, and a good exercise in cultural exchange for her students. It was a learning experience for all.

Writing is not an element of Beninese education that is heavily emphasized, and in saying that, what I truly mean is that is glanced over with the same attention given to airborne dust particles. So, when my students submitted their first drafts of Pen Pal letters, they were a mess. I was convinced I’d gotten myself into a hole too deep to climb out of, yet Africa never fails to impress. I developed a template for their letters; now, all they had to do was follow the template and write about their favorite things – food, activities, school subjects (a majority brown-nosed and flattered me by scribing “English!”), and colors. Some of the answers were funny – favorite drinks included beer (perfectly legal for twelve year-olds here). Some had favorite activities that included, “jumping, running, and blue.” By the second drafts, however, it was clear that they had a handle on it and were enjoying the process. I sent the letters to America after Halloween, and now we all wait, patiently, for the American class’s responses.

My Girls
Club GLOW (the girls club – Girls Leading Our World) in Kalale is a success! We have about 30 regular members that come to each Wednesday meeting, and we recently just had elections. I have developed a reputation for inspiring lots of dances and songs, and I love the two hours per week that I get to spend hanging out and talking with the girls. We cover a variety of topics – how school is going, what is going on at home, the general affect of mistrusting and being perplexed by boys (which seems to be a universal issue amongst women of all ages). Although it is very flattering, I am having some difficulty coming into my role as a model for young girls. I have never been one follow directions nor do things according to social norms, so I am constantly unsure of what type of image I am projecting for the girls. Internally vacillating between what kind of woman I want them to see me as and what type of woman I want to be is a huge struggle that must mostly be achieve through physical representation and gestures – as my French is not nearly advanced enough to express deeper thoughts and feelings. It will be a challenge for me to find that balance and mold myself to be the best Club GLOW supervisor I can be.

Bright Lights, Big City … and Bandages?

I got eaten alive by mosquitoes during my stage training in Porto-Novo, and I spent the better parts of my days there scratching away at the bites until my legs looked like a watershed, tiny little streams flowing red with blood, winding down my calves. It seemed only natural then to continue to grate my legs like a wedge of parmesan cheese while I was a post. Wrong. There is one huge sanitation road block separating between Porto-Novo and Kalale: running water. Washing the wounds in well water allowed tiny little staphylococcus bacteria to set up shop in both of my gams (for the third time since moving to Africa). There is nothing like falling ill to remind yourself that you are in the Third World. It is manageable to muster through difficulties and the trials of life in Africa when all your corporal parts are working with you. When you are sick, there is nothing more you want in life than the creature comforts of home. This time, the infection was serious to earn me a week of antibiotics and rest in Parakou.

Parakou is the third largest city in Benin, and is the de facto capital of the north. Located just southwest of Kalale, by bush taxi through the dirt roads of the brush, it takes me about four hours to get to Parakou from Kalale. Parakou is my oasis. It is a friendly, fun ville with a can-do attitude and laid back atmosphere. You can find just about anything you’d want or need in Parakou between the Grand Marche and many Yovo markets in town. There is also Peace Corps workstation located in Parakou where volunteers can go to use the internet, take a shower under running water, and read one of the many books from the well-stocked library while sitting on a hopper with flush capability. For a volunteer like me, basically, Parakou is Mecca, and any excuse I can use to get into the city, I abuse with eager enthusiasm. The Medical Office agreed that the third time was the charm as far as staph infections go, and the only cure for what ailed me was a week of medical surveillance by a doctor at the Parakou Hospital and a week-long stay at the workstation.

Essentially, for a week, I gorged myself with food, took two showers a day, and spent the morning getting the multiple infections on my legs gauzed, bandaged, and slathered in antiseptic ointment by a team of nurses at the hospital. I kept myself busy as much free internet as the workstation’s dial-up connection could handle and the libraries of movies and books. I didn’t realize how much my body needed the break, going straight from stage to working as a teacher as post, and my stint in the Med Unit was a much-needed sanity salvation. After a week, my legs were tattooed with tiny pink scars that heralded the success of the bandages and antibiotics, and my spirit had recharged and was ready to return to life in the village.

A Reason for Giving Thanks

This year, I will be spending my Thanksgiving in Parakou. This week, as luck would have it, I have teacher training for all the Peace Corps English teachers in my stage. Because we will all be in the same place at the same time over the Great American Feasting Holiday, we decided to throw our own Beninese Thanksgiving. The menu is pretty great: Paula Dean’s TurDuckEn (traditionally a chicken stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey, but we had to improvise on the duck meat are instead using a Guinea fowl), sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and both apple and pumpkin pie. This will be the first Thanksgiving I’ve spent outside of America, and it will be the first Thanksgiving I get to actually thank the fowls for their generous sacrifice before I dig into their gingerly grilled and marinated carcasses fork-first.
However, the turkey is not the only thing I have to be thankful for this holiday season. In honor of the festivities, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported me on my journey to the Peace Corps. Thank you all for taking the time to read the blog, send me letters and emails, and for all the positive support and encouragement I’ve had before and since arriving in Benin. Bearing the burdens of Africa would be infinitely more difficult without the strong, loving backbone of my friends and family. I’d like to thank my parents, my grandparents, my sister, Ro Osborn, and my Aunts Arlene and Uncle Ray, and the Holub clan for the amazing packages they have sent for any packages that are still making the transatlantic voyage. Any little reminder of America, any little creature comfort from home is a huge help and an amazing gift. I appreciate everything more than you know, and I am incredibly grateful. I’d like to give a shout-out also to my parents, my Aunt Arlene, and Michelle Knoll for my weekly phone call sessions. Thank you for allowing me to partake in one of my favorite American pastimes (gabbing on the phone); thank you for listening to me drone on endlessly about Africa; thank you for letting me hear your voice, your laugh, and letting me listen to your stories and life in America (and an extra special thanks to Michelle for showing all the others how do use Skype to make the calls!).

Please remember all of you – I love you, and I miss you. My heart is merely a mosaic made of all the people I have ever loved. You are all here with me in everything that I do and in all my memories that I recall upon for comfort, solace, and guidance. I am incredibly lucky and fortunate to have every single one of you as a part of my life. Thank you. Merci beaucoup. Mille grazie. May you all enjoy your Thanksgiving holiday with good food, good friends, and healthy families.

And, in the interest of being nostalgic, I WILL be sorely disappointed if someone from home does not email me the score of the Easton-P’burg Turkey Day game! Thanks again.